What's being done

• The United States is already buying $162.5 million worth of vaccine against the H5N1 bird-flu strain from Sanofi-Aventis and Chiron Corp. It is also ordering millions of doses of Tamiflu and Relenza, two drugs believed to offer some protection against the bird flu.

• Lawmakers have given President George W. Bush $8 billion in emergency funding. The Senate, pushed by Democrats, passed the funding bill Thursday. Senators said it should be used for medications and vaccine, and for beefing up hospitals and other systems to detect and contain a superflu. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., called the funding "a victory for common sense."

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's long-awaited plan of how to fight the next superflu will likely include beefed-up attempts to spot human infections early, both here and abroad.

Expect recommendations on how to isolate the sick. Governors and mayors are on notice to figure out who will actually inject stockpiled vaccines into the arms of panicked people.

Bush on Tuesday is visiting the National Institutes of Health to announce his administration's strategy on how to prepare for the next flu pandemic, whether it's caused by the bird flu in Asia or some other super strain of influenza. Federal health officials have spent the last year updating a national plan on how to do that.

The president will ask Congress for unspecified new money, not just for a vaccine against bird flu but to fund a buildup of infrastructure ready to deal with any pandemic, said a senior administration official, who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity.

Stockpiling drugs and vaccines is just one component.

"Understand that a lot of the things we need to do to prepare are not related to magic bullets," said Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, an infectious-disease specialist who has advised the government on preparations for the next worldwide flu outbreak but has not seen the final version of the plan.

How to provide food supplies, everyday medical care for people who don't have the superflu, basic utilities and even security must be part of the plan, Osterholm and others have counseled the Bush administration.

"In this day and age of a global economy - with just-in-time delivery and no surge capacity and international supply chains - those things are very difficult to do for a week, let alone for 12 to 18 months of what will be a very tough time," he said.

While it is impossible to say when the next superflu will strike, there have been three pandemics in the last century and influenza experts say the world is overdue.

Concern is growing that the bird flu could trigger one if it mutates to start spreading easily among people - something that hasn't yet happened.

But amid growing public fear about bird flu, federal health officials are beginning to wonder about a backlash if the worrisome strain in fact fizzles out - or is contained in birds, as specialists are struggling to do - and never threatens U.S. health.

"Will critics say, 'We have been crying wolf,' and lose the sense of urgency we feel about this issue?" Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt asked last week.

They shouldn't, he said, because pandemic preparations to improve how vaccines are made and diseases detected will improve public health overall. "If it isn't the current H5N1 virus that leads to an influenza pandemic, at some point in our nation's future another virus will," Leavitt said.

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